


Too Much Caffeine Isn't Good For You

by notmyyacht



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Barba tripping balls, Detective "Sunshine" Rollins, Drug Use, Gen, Hallucinations, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Unreliable Narrator, workaholic!Barba
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 11:48:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4136310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notmyyacht/pseuds/notmyyacht
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was just going to be another late night of work for Barba. That is, until someone drugged his coffee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Much Caffeine Isn't Good For You

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by pyrrhicvic: Barba is drugged, and cannot get to a hospital. 
> 
> So yeah, you read those tags correctly. Any grammar errors are on me. Enjoy!

Burning the midnight fuel... again.

Barba glances at his watch and sighs. He covers his gaping mouth to conceal the third yawn in the past five minutes. It's coffee o'clock.

He stands, strides over to his coffee machine and lifts the pot. He frowns at the nearly empty pot as he swirls the last few drops around the bottom.

The shuffling of feet outside his closed office door draws his attention. There's a shape behind the glass, not one he can make out because the blinds are closed, but the backlight of the outer room helps. Perhaps Carmen, his secretary, didn't go home after all and the cleaning crew tends to work in the wee hours of the morning, not late at night. Barba rubs his eye with the heel of his palm, digging in until he sees stars.

 _Getting your late nights mixed up, Rafael_ , he scolds himself.

"Hey Carmen!" he calls. The silhouette stops moving, waiting for Barba to continue. "Carmen, could you please get me more coffee?"

There's a muffled "Mmhm" on the other side. Barba yells back a "Thank you" before returning to his chair.

Barba blinks a few times, staring down at the file. The trial for this particular case is still a couple days away, but he's got two other cases on the side.

 _Sleep is for the weak_ , he idly thinks as his eyelids droop.

The click of the door closing snaps Barba back to reality. He's luckily not a drooler, but a piece of paper is stuck to his face when he sits up straight. He quickly pulls it off and flattens it against the table with his palm. He glances down at his watch and relaxes. Not too bad; he's only been out for ten minutes.

"Carmen!" he calls, glancing at the closed door. There's no silhouette now. His gaze flickers to the other side of the room where a now full coffee pot is waiting.

"Carmen, you are too good for me," he says with a small smile.

The next half hour is productive. Barba is once again on track. He takes small sips of his coffee at first, trying to make it last the rest of the night. Twenty minutes later, he says screw it and takes larger gulps. At this rate, he'll be nearly done before the caffeine runs out anyway. Maybe he will get some sleep tonight after all.

Despite how quickly he's downing the stuff, Barba doesn't make it through his second cup.

He isn't sure when the room started turning onto its side or when he forgot how to properly read. Barba squints down at the page and yep, those letters are peeling off. He pushes himself back as he watches wide-eyed as the letters fly off the page and start dancing in the air.

Barba's first thought is that he's fallen asleep again. He blinks a few times and grips onto the side of his desk so gravity doesn't force him to take a look out the window.

"I feeeeel awaaaaaake," he says, dragging each word out, surprising himself. His free hand grips the arm rest of his chair and he attempts to push himself up. The lights are suddenly too bright and is his conference table _melting_?

"Ohhh nooooo," he groans, slumping back into his chair. He squeezes his eyes shut, his heart pounding in his ears. Three little words finally breach the surface of his mind: _I've been drugged_.

"Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!" _Am I screaming? I think I'm screaming._ "I have every right to scream! I've been druuuuug..." Barba finally opens his eyes and starts patting at his pockets.

 _Phone phone phone..._ "Where's my fucking phone!?" His hands flail over his desk, searching for the cell. Oh god, where did he put it? His hand brushes against the landline and a small hope flutters in his chest. At least, he hopes that's hope. His fingers wrap around the receiver and he pulls it to his ear. He's used the phone a thousand times. He doesn't need the numbers that are now floating off the keys to join his notes, which are now dancing in the air. Everything is going to be fine.

"9-1-1," he says aloud as he dials. There's nothing on the other side. Not the expected '911 what is your emergency?' Not even a dial tone.

"Oh."

Barba lets the receiver _clunk_ onto the wood of his desk with realization. Whoever drugged him cut him off. They took his cell, they cut his landline, and left him. He looks up and glares at the half-empty coffee pot.

That wasn't Carmen. Carmen had gone home at her regular time. That wasn't her on the other side.

Barba cocks his head to the side, watching as the coffee pot starts shaking. What the hell is it doing? The lid of the pot flies wildly up and down. It's laughing.

"Don't laugh at me!"

Barba covers his mouth and closes his eyes again. This is not happening. He did not just yell at a coffeepot. He's hallucinating. This isn't right. God, he must have multiple substances in his system.

He drops his hand and stares intently at the door.

"Got to... got to get to a hospital."

Barba pushes himself to his feet. He's dizzy, but he can't let that stop him, he _won't_ let it. He takes a few steps forward, gripping the edge of his desk for support. Get to the door. Get to the door. Carmen's phone is on her desk. He can call for help there.

The numbers and letters from his landline and paperwork whisper to each other and fly around his head in circles.

"Get away!" He waves his free hand, hoping his hallucination would just buzz off already. His conference table seems to have melted completely into the carpet, browning the entire floor. Barba grimaces as he steps over it. The carpet squelches under his shoes, the liquefied table sticking to him like gum. He mutters under his breath to remind himself it's not real.

He reaches the door with a relieved laugh. He can see Carmen's desk -and her landline- through the blinds. It looks connected and... was it always purple? He's quite certain the door wasn't pink a moment ago. The coffeepot's laughter catches Barba's attention. He turns to it and sticks out his tongue. Who says he needs to be a mature adult when he's high?

The gesture seems to only incite the coffeepot to laugh harder, heartier... more human. Barba freezes at the familiar sound of his father's voice emanating from the coffeepot. That familiar hearty laugh that would turn into a dying seagull squawk the longer it went on.

Then the letters and numbers hovering over his head were laughing too, their own voices higher-pitched. What is so damn funny? Barba wants to yell at them, demand they tell him the fucking punch line already.

His hand grips the doorknob and suddenly he gets the joke. His eyes widen and he twists the knob again. It won't budge. The door's been locked.

"No!" he shouts and aggressively jiggles the knob over and over. "No! Open Goddamnit! _Open!_ " Still nothing.

Barba releases the doorknob and covers his ears to block out the laughter. Nausea riles his stomach and his head is pounding. _Stopstopstopstop..._ He starts laughing too, despite himself. He can't differentiate his laughter from the coffeepot or the floating letters', they're all laughing so loud and hard.

He collapses backward onto the damp carpet. Everything smells of freshly ground coffee, it's deliciously intoxicating. Barba eyes close as he lets the laughter and the scent of coffee overwhelm him.

When he opens his eyes, the laughter vanishes. he stares up at the ceiling, taking in the bustle of noise that has taken the joyful sound's place. The ceiling gets slightly closer and his body feels weightless. Is he _flying_?

A yellow sun comes into view. It yells at him. He furrows his brow. What could a sun possibly want from him? Wait, the sun has lips! Barba intently tries to read the sun's lips, mouthing out what it's saying. His eyebrows raise in revelation that the sun is saying his name. It knows him!

"Barba! Can you hear me?" the sun continues, "It's Detective Rollins. Barba!"

Rollins. Of course! Not a sun.

"You're yellow," he says, furrowing his brow again, not really sure what he meant by that. "Rollins the ray of sunshine."

Barba is certain that he's moving now and he's outside.

"Sooo cold," he grumbles. Rollins is talking to him again, but he's not making out what she's saying. She's speaking too much and too quickly for him to keep up.

"Stop interrogating me, Detective Sunshine!" he blurts out before a wave of nausea rolls over him again and he turns to his side. There are several surprised, disgusted groans and Barba can only assume that he just threw up on someone. He mumbles an apology to whoever that was. Then he's moving again. There are a few jolts from the stretcher being wheeled up into a flashing ambulance that turn his stomach, but he manages not to vomit again.

Barba's vision blurs, but he can still see the blond hair of Rollins hovering above him. He connects A to B that the hand holding his belongs to her, and he gives her a gentle squeeze as a thank you.

**Author's Note:**

> There is going to be a sort-of sequel that I will post as a "chapter two" sometime soon that tells this from Rollins' POV so some of the weird, inconsistent things make more sense. If you're looking forward to it, let me know! :D


End file.
